If a distinction is to be made between divination and fortune-telling, divination has a formal or ritual and often social character, usually in a religious context; while fortune-telling is a more everyday practice for personal purposes.

As a natural health and healing modality, divination is often dismissed by skeptics, including the scientific community, as being mere superstition: in the 2nd century, Lucian devoted a witty essay to the career of a charlatan, Alexander the false prophet, trained by "one of those who advertise enchantments, miraculous incantations, charms for your love-affairs, visitations for your enemies, disclosures of buried treasure, and successions to estates" [2], though most Romans believed in dreams and charms. However, advocates say there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for the efficacy of divination.Divination is a universal cultural phenomenon which anthropologists have observed as being present in many religions and cultures in all ages up to the present day.

Categories of divination

Psychologist Julian Jaynes categorized divination according to the following types:
* Omens and omen texts. "The most primitive, clumsy, but enduring method...is the simple recording of sequences of unusual or important events." (1976:236) Chinese history offers scrupulously documented occurrences of strange births, the tracking of natural phenomena, and other data. Chinese governmental planning relied on this method of forecasting for long-range strategy. It is not unreasonable to assume that modern scientific inquiry began with this kind of divination; Joseph Needham's work considered this very idea.
* Sortilege (cleromancy). This consists of the casting of lots whether with sticks, stones, bones, beans, or some other item. Modern playing cards and board games developed from this type of divination.
* Augury. Divination that ranks a set of given possibilities. It can be qualitative (such as shapes, proximities, etc.) Dowsing (a form of rhabdomancy) developed from this type of divination. The Romans in classical times used Etruscan methods of augury such as hepatoscopy (actually a form of extispicy). Haruspices examined the livers of sacrificed animals.

* Spontaneous. An unconstrained form of divination, free from any particular medium, and actually a generalization of all types of divination. The answer comes from whatever object the diviner happens to see or hear. Some Christians and members of other religions use a form of bibliomancy: they ask a question, riffle the pages of their holy book, and take as their answer the first passage their eyes light upon. Other forms of spontaneous divination include reading auras and New Age methods of Feng Shui such as "intuitive" and Fuzion.

Most common methods of divination include:

* Astrology (by celestial bodies)
* Ailuromancy (by the behaviour of felines; see Felidomancy)
* Bibliomancy (by book, frequently but not always a religious text)
* Cartomancy (by cards, e.g., playing cards, tarot cards, and non-tarot oracle cards; see also Taromancy)
* Cheiromancy (by palms; see Palmistry)

* Crystallomancy/Scrying (by crystals or other reflecting objects)
* Dactylomancy (by means of finger movements)
* Extispicy (from the entrails of sacrificed animals)
* Geomancy (by earth), includes Feng Shui divination
* Graphology (by handwriting)
* I Ching divination (ancient Chinese divination using I Ching): (However, as performed by some diviners with heavy reliance on an accompanying I Ching manual, this is, in effect, also a form of Bibliomancy/Stichomancy)
* Numerology (by numbers)
* Oneiromancy (by dreams)
* Onomancy (by names)
* Ouija board divination
* Podomancy (by the soles of one's feet)
* Palmistry (by palm inspection)
* Phrenology (by the shape of one's head)
* Pyromancy, or pyroscopy (by fire)
* Runecasting / Runic divination (by Runes)
* Scatomancy (by droppings, usually animal)
* Taromancy (by specially designed cards: Tarot; see also Cartomancy)

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